Baerren: MSU trustees should resign on the grounds that they just don't get it

FILE - In this Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018, file photo, Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo speaks at a news conference after an NCAA college basketball game against Maryland in College Park, Md. Izzo has been regarded as one of the most frank and accessible in sports. Larry Nassar and an ESPN report has changed his ways in front of reporters, leaning on mostly scripted statements to dodge questions he can't or doesn't want to answer right now. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Up until this week, if youíd a-asked, I would have told you that MSUís trustees should be the last people broomed out in mopping up the Larry Nassar scandal. Culpable to an extent, yes, but you certainly donít want to gut an oversight board of its institutional knowledge in the middle of a rebuild.

This week, that faith was rewarded by the worldís most tone-deaf selection of John Engler as interim president. Englerís political skills are legendary, and would be a savvy operator should the Legislature take the unwise course of meddling.

It also misses the point. Nassar didnít dump MSUís credibility into the toilet. MSU did that itself by glossing over sexual violence. The athletics programs are the most prominent tip of that. When you hear people say, ďBurn it all down,Ē they mean that quite literally. Tear down every university department or program related to addressing sexual violence, fire anyone involved.

The question is whether Engler fully understands this. In his first appearance before the campus community, he suggested he didnít in saying that he wanted justice for all of Nassarís victims.

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It isnít just about Nassar. Itís also more than athletics. Students and young alumni expect the university to start pulling strings that expose a campus-wide culture that enables sexual assault. This is why they were clamoring for a female member of faculty, not a politician.

Engler isnít uniquely to blame for this. The board, half stocked with former football players and coaches, has taken heat for being overweening in their support of athletics. This is, after all, the same board that still seats Joel Ferguson, a well-heeled Democrat who referred to it as ďthat Nassar thing.Ē

But there is another, potentially more explosive angle to this. Bill Schuette, who is running for governor, has now landed on this scandal with his set of leather pandering loafers. Schuette used to work for Engler as his agricultural commissioner. Investigating MSU on Schuetteís behalf is William Forsyth, a former Kent County prosecutor with ties to connected alumni Peter Secchia, who a week and a half ago said that if parents donít feel safe sending their kids to MSU they can send them elsewhere. Athletics appears to rank high on Secchiaís priorities when it comes to MSU. All of them are Republicans, tasked to handle a major scandal at one of the stateís flagship universities in an Election Year.

There is nothing by itself wrong with this, and Forsythís last foray into politics had his call to the carpet former Speaker of the House Jase Bolger for engineering a last-minute GOP seat-rigging scheme. But the university, and anything related to the board, starts at a tremendous credibility disadvantage in that the board seemed a lot more concerned with the prospects of MSUís athletics than with Nassarís victims in rallying behind Lou Anna Simon.

The risk moving forward is that the new leadership appears to have too cozy a relationship with the people investigating it, and it appears that they are moving on the predetermined destination to protect sacred cows. How badly that erodes the universityís credibility statewide is anyoneís guess.

Trustees should have thought about this. They apparently didnít and in doing so, have demonstrated that if the university is to regain the public trust that everyone on the board should be the next to go.

Eric Baerren is a Morning Sun columnist. He can be reached at ebaerren@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ebaerren.